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Development Diary #8 - 5th of December 2007

It is yet another winter afternoon here in Stockholm, and the sun set a few minutes after lunch. We had our last pre-beta Vindaloo, as the beta-testers will be starting their work at the end of this week..

We added the possibility for Fog of War to the map and wrapped up the final culture army unit for the Seleukids. The programmers also spent a lot of time, further optimising the game, making both the map and the event engine to run quicker. The system to recruit mercenaries for your armies were developed, and we added the artwork for the ideas. Several more eventseries for governors, rivals, intrige and nation creations were made.

We finished our presentation of the team last week with the seventh team-member, and that’s everyone that is working on the development side. We also have other people involved with the game at Paradox, including people working with localisation, support, marketing, economy, distribution and sales. Without their hard work, our games would not reach you all.

Here we see a screenshot of the overview interface. I’m currently playing Rome with Gaius Julius Ceasar as my Consul. Rome is an oligarchic republic, so we get a bonus if we have 1 military, 1 civic and 1 economical idea. I picked Professional Soldiers, Citizenship and Organized Recruitment for mine here. On the screenshot you also see 5 indicators below the ideas, which are which modifiers currently affect the country. There are a few positive and one negative there. This screen also contains a list of your nations provinces and a big picture of your current ruler.

Today I will talk a little bit about how the trade-system works in Rome. Each province has one type of goods that they produce. Each type of goods gives a certain benefit. For example, iron allows the recruitment of heavy infantry in that province. Each province may then have a variable amount of trade routes connecting it to other provinces, where they mutually give the benefit of their goods to each other. The amount of trade routes a province can have depends on several factors, such as national ideas, buildings, and technological advances. Traderoutes can be of three different categories, first of all, every province can always trade with a neighbour province if both can have at least 1 more trade route. Secondly, a province with a harbour building can trade overseas with another province with a harbour. This trade is of course very vulnerable to pirates or blockades when in wars. The third way to get a traderoute going is by tracing one overland, but then you need to have trade access negotiated through any potential countries between, and each province needs a road-network built up. Trade routes also provide income in gold to the countries, with foreign trade much more profitable than internal trade.

The linking of the trade good to unit production sounds like a very nice touch.

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That linked trade system sounds promising. And I hope that means fog of war is removable, sounds like it.

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Were rejection e-mails set out if we didn't get in the beta? I assume I didn't get in, but I never got a 'Tough Luck' e-mail.

Also, shouldn't there be TWO Consuls? You're missing out on a cool bit of flavor and historical accuracy if Rome only has one Consul a year. I mean, they had veto power over each other and you could have all sorts of cool events if they didn't like each other or had differing policies.

Hell, Wikipeida claims that:

In Latin, consules means "those who walk together".

This wouldn't bug me in a more 'cartoony' game like Rome: Total War, but I'll be pretty sad if we only get one Consul. It's like having a American Civil War game where the Union is led by Prime Minister Abraham Lincoln. Close, but... wrong.